


you can go home again

by ohallows



Series: what we do inn the apocalypse [7]
Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Catharsis, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, HAPPY ZOLF ANNIVERSARY !!, Introspection, Regret, set in the 18 months
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:08:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25345213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohallows/pseuds/ohallows
Summary: Zolf visits Herefordshire.
Relationships: Feryn Smith & Zolf Smith
Series: what we do inn the apocalypse [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1753462
Kudos: 15





	you can go home again

**Author's Note:**

> hmm i sped thru finishing this a bit. also took some liscense with geography it’s fine
> 
> HEY!!! ZOLF HAS OFFICIALLY BEEN BACK FOR A YEAR TODAY!!! i remember hearing his voice and silently screaming in my desk chair at work :’) i love him. anyway have this!!

The sign, worn and nearly rubbed away after years of exposure to the elements, says  _ Welcome to Herefordshire!  _ in large, blocky text that you wouldn’t be able to read unless you already knew what it said. The town is nestled in a small valley in between the hills, with large, gaping cave mouths that lead down to the tin mines that the area is famous for. 

Herefordshire looks… well, just like it did the day Zolf left it all behind, the day he ran away from everything he knew and all his mistakes. Buildings just this edge of shabby, a few people roaming the streets, children running around the fountains… it’s all so familiar to him, as though he just left yesterday. 

Zolf’s not the same, though. Hell, it’s been nearly 10 years since he’s been here, of  _ course  _ he’s not the same. Beard’s longer, for one. More lines around his eyes, borne of stress and trauma. Missing some limbs, he thinks ruefully, staring down at the water legs that are getting weaker and weaker by the day. He doesn’t think it’s long now before Poseidon completely cuts him off; the Harlequins have already promised to help him out when that happens, one set of mechanical legs set aside for him. Still, even with Poseidon losing more and more faith in him every day, his magic is as strong as ever. Not sure why - Zolf knows how this works, knows that if you catch the favor of a god, they’re fickle enough to pull the magic out of you if you don’t go along with what they want. But for some reason, Zolf’s still able to cast, maybe even a bit stronger than he was before. He hasn’t had the energy to question it; never look a gift horse in the mouth, his dad always said. 

He tips the carriage driver who carried him all the way out here generously, and then he slides out, standing in front of the town he grew up in for the first time in what feels like forever. Zolf swallows heavily, staring up at the sign, and takes a deep breath to steel himself. He - he hadn’t thought he’d ever come back, not after how he’d left things. This town had felt… lost to him, as though he didn’t belong, as though it had never really been a  _ home _ , not after he ran away in the dead of night. 

Running. It’s what Zolf’s good at, after all. 

Prague was… god, at least five months ago, by his count. It’s not  _ exact,  _ because Zolf spent the first month after leaving Hamid and Sasha in a near stupor. Traveled around a bit, looking for any bit of normalcy he could cling to, anything to believe in again. It was harder than he thought, really. He thought that a clean break would have made everything  _ easier,  _ but all it really did was make him wish he’d said a better goodbye to them. 

… They’re not the only ones he wishes he’d said goodbye to. 

He knows the way around the town like the back of his hand, padding subconsciously along the dusty trail toward the hill on the outskirts of town. This was… this was his  _ place,  _ as a child. He can still smell the salt coming off of the sea when he and Feryn used to play by the shore, can see their neighbors all out in the town square chatting as the sun slowly set in the distance, can still hear his mum calling for him and Feryn from the back porch to come in for dinner. 

That’s… not this, anymore. They’re nothing but memories, embedded so deep into what made Zolf, who he  _ used  _ to be, that they still superimpose, but this town… it isn’t his. Not anymore. 

No one here recognises him, or if they do, they don’t speak up. It’s been years, and Zolf looks drastically different from the kid he was when he ran away under cover of night, cloaked in guilt and shame. He gets a few looks from a few of the miners who are coming back from their shifts, but he ignores their soot-dyed faces and arms, taking a few steadying breaths until he’s past them.

Their old house is gone, made into a strip of shops and general stores and carts for traveling merchants. Zolf isn’t sure how he feels about it, honestly. He - he doesn’t know if he  _ wanted  _ to see the house, to live through those memories once more. Doesn’t know if it’s  _ better  _ that it’s not there. The fence still is, though; Zolf and Feryn had helped their mum build it while their dad worked, when they were younger. Needed something so that the Thomas’ dog would stop running around in their flowerbeds, and it had been a good way of keeping the two of them busy after schooling for the day was done. 

He avoids the main stretch of street in the town; it goes by the mines, closer than Zolf wants to get, and he knows how to stay away from things he doesn’t want to confront. It’s a busier town than he remembers; people are coming in and out of the storefronts, laughing and chatting with each other, and most of them don’t even seem to notice him as he slowly makes his way through the town, head tucked deep into the collar of his jacket. He looks for all the world like one of the drunks stumbling out of the pub, albeit a bit quieter. 

It’s not long before he leaves the little strip mostly behind and makes it to the graveyard. He pushes open the rusty metal gate; it makes a high-pitched grating noise as he does so, and Zolf winces a bit. Never had been a good gate, this one, always loud and scratchy. He lets it fall shut behind him, and stares up the hill, taking a deep breath. 

There are more headstones in the graveyard than there were the last time he was here, when he knelt down in front of his brother’s grave and whispered endless apologies as he wished with every bone in his body that it was all just a horrible nightmare. More headstones than were here when he pushed a small carved bird, an identical match to the one he carries around in his pack, into the still-fresh dirt; it was a final goodbye before Zolf left the town for what he thought would be forever. 

He trudges up to the top of the hill, and he finds three headstones grouped close together under a small willow tree that someone must have planted recently. There are two more headstones here, now. Zolf is - he never really said  _ goodbye _ to his parents, and that’s something he’ll have to carry around with him forever. He just  _ ran,  _ left them with a shitty note that he knows couldn't have made much sense. He was - was nothing more than a  _ kid,  _ terrified of the weight of his decisions, when he left. Gods. They - they must have been scared for him. 

They lost both of them. Feryn and Zolf. He never even sent a  _ letter _ to explain, to tell them that he was  _ okay,  _ that he hadn’t run off in the night and just died somewhere. The guilt crashes over him, and it’s never truly left but he’s never really had to  _ confront  _ it before now, not since he’d gotten the letter during his service informing him about his parents passing. They lost two sons, in one fell swoop, and Zolf caused them both.

He kneels in front of them, now, and bows his head. 

“I’m - I’m so sorry,” he whispers, hands clenched in his lap. “I shouldn’t have left.”

Absolution doesn’t come. Not that he expected it to, alone in this graveyard, in this  _ town. _ So, instead, he sits down on the grass, next to the headstone that he’s seen in dreams and nightmares for…  _ years  _ now, and glances over at it, wrapping his arms around his knees as he leans against the stone. It’s hard, and cold, and not even slightly what he wants, but it’s the closest he can get to his brother, now. 

“Hey, Feryn,” he says, in a voice that’s scratchy from lack of use and the tears that he has yet to shed. It cracks when he says Feryn’s name, and even all these years later it’s hard for Zolf to do this - to see the headstone. He talks to Feryn all the time, in his head, because it brings him a sense of comfort, but he’s only ever seen the headstone once before. “Fancy seeing you here.”

It’s a weak joke, and even Zolf doesn’t crack a smile at it. All he’s met with is silence, a dense quiet that’s only amplified by the willow tree leaves stretching out around him. 

“The Harlequins want me to go out on a mission,” Zolf says, laying back in the grass and tucking his hands behind his head as he stares up at the sky. “Funny, innit? Went off to learn more about you and Dad, ended up following in your footsteps.”

Feryn doesn’t respond, but Zolf swears he can hear his brother laughing in his head, and sighs, letting his eyes slip shut. The Harlequins have been a bit after him, lately, what with the whole distance from Poseidon thing, to investigate the weird weather phenomena around the globe, and Zolf thinks he’s going to take them up on the offer. It’s not like he has anything  _ better  _ to do, after all. 

Might be nice to feel. Dunno. Needed.  _ Useful _ .

“Think about it a lot, you know,” Zolf says, speaking around the lump in his throat. He covers his eyes with his hand, fingers digging into his temples, and his voice cracks when he continues. “I - I remember the crack, gods, it was - it was so  _ loud,  _ I just - it shouldn’t have  _ happened,  _ I should have - you and Dad told me, right, told me not to muck about, and I just -“

He cuts himself off as he presses his lips together tightly. “I can - gods, Feryn, every  _ night  _ sometimes, I just - you never really forget the feel of the earth falling around you,  _ crushing _ you, and I - every single time, you push me out of the way, and then you’re - you’re  _ gone  _ and there’s nothing I can  _ do _ , except scream for  _ help _ and it’s never - no one ever comes  _ fast enough. _

“I thought it would stop hurting, by now,” Zolf says. The grief of it has never left his chest, and it’s gotten easier over the years, but it‘s not something that you ever get rid of. “But I still miss you so - so  _ godsdamn  _ much, every day, and I just can’t -“

He cuts himself off with a soft swear, pressing his knuckles to his mouth. “I didn’t -“ he tries, but his throat is so thick with unshed tears that Zolf can barely speak. “I’m - I’m so  _ sorry,  _ Feryn.”

It’s like the floodgates have crashed open with that word; Zolf loses whatever little control he had over his senses, over his emotions, and he breaks. He cries, because there’s no one around to see, because his chest is weeping with the pain of it all, and because this feels so much like the catharsis he’s been chasing forever, because he  _ needs  _ to. It lasts. He doesn’t know how long, but when the chest-wracking sobs are over, Zolf finally looks up again, watching as the sun just barely peeks through the leaves of the willow tree. 

He feels… he doesn’t know. Less and more, at the same time. He doesn’t really want to think about it, right now. 

He takes the ring off of his hand and looks at it. The emblem on the ring matches the small emblem stamped into the stone, and he presses the two together for a moment, as though that will magically unlock something, as though that will bring his brother back. Nothing happens, and Zolf pulls his hand back, fist clenched as it rests in his lap. 

He’s going to take the Harlequins up on their offer. Maybe he can learn more about Feryn, about their parents. About his family’s history.

“I’m gonna see you again, Feryn,” Zolf says, determined. He - he doesn’t know what he believes anymore, not  _ really,  _ but that’s the one thing he’s always been certain of. He will. He’ll see all of them again, someday.

A warm breeze drifts through the graveyard, rustling the grass and dirt as it brushes past Zolf, and he looks up at the sky as the tears begin to dry on his cheeks. He stands up, unsteady, and just for a moment brushes his hands across his parent’s graves. He never was able to say goodbye to them, one of the greatest regrets he has, but time doesn’t change just because you don’t like it.

“I’m sorry,” he says again, and wipes away the tears on his cheeks. “I’ll make you proud.”

He leaves. Leaves the graveyard, leaves the  _ town,  _ steps on to the nearest boat he can find that will ferry him for free as long as he’s willing to lend a hand, and he turns and watches Herefordshire fade away behind him, far in the distance. For a moment, he stares at the ring on his hand, tempted to drop it into the water as the boat slowly pulls away, but decides against it, shoving his hand in his pocket as he stares over the water. The salty air brushes over him, and he breathes in as his eyes slip closed, face upturned toward the sun.

He’ll leave this behind. Leave everything but the memories in a shaded graveyard on top of a hill, and stop letting it tear at him. He can  _ accept  _ all of this, now. Accept the guilt, accept the fault, and move on with it. 

On to what’s next. 

**Author's Note:**

> me, my lips incredibly close to the mic: zolf smith.  
> the entire crowd: screaming and cheering


End file.
